As GloRoMo is going strong (73 pictures in the gallery, and I’m not sure yet how many feet) I was reminded tonight of one of the things that sets rope aside from many other sexual toys.
Imagination.
I mean, give someone leather cuffs, and they pretty much know what they’re going to do with it. Give them a vibrator and yeah, there’s going to be a lot of places and techniques, but it’s pretty much going to A) vibrate and B) touch the other person. That’s it.
But rope…rope requires imagination, as my friend the Sexgeek told me recently. Hand someone rope, and they have to figure out what they’re going to do with it. Even if the obvious thought (“I’m gonna tie up some chicks!”) comes to mind, there still comes the question of how?
- Are you going to do something simple and direct?
- Something artsy and complex?
- Something just plain fuck-them-silly-dirty?
- Something really out there?
In a recent conversation with a friend I get to see far too little of, she was telling me about a recent suspension she did–her first with another person involved. It looked like this:
Now, I don’t know about you, but that is some fine ropework there. I mean, world class. And this is her first suspension of someone else, after a lot of self (and sub) suspension.
And she’s worried, you see, that she “really doesn’t know what she’s doing.” When I hear that, it sounds like the same voice that tells people “Oh, you can’t be an artist” or “Oh, you can’t sing/dance/insert creative art here.”
It drives me mad. Because she obviously knew what she was doing, she obviously did something wonderful, and thank the gods she didn’t let that voice keep her from putting that pretty smile on SeeMeNaked’s face. I just wish she’d realize that she has the skills, she has the ability to translate them into imagination, and that’s why when people hand her rope, she doesn’t say “Hmmm. What am I supposed to do with this?”
No, as she’s told me, she “gets rope”. It just triggers those creative juices. Next time, she may flog with it. She may just use it sensually. But it will be her doing it, not the piece itself.
No, I’m not dissing leather or metal or anything. I’m just saying that it’s part of what makes really good rope work–kinbaku–an art, and why I prefer it to leather, or cuffs, or stocks. Give me a length of rope; I’ll rock your world.
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